


Another Thing On Games Preservation

by Sparky_Lurkdragon



Category: No Fandom, Video Games - Fandom
Genre: Archived from lurkdragonstuff blog, Gen, Imported from Tumblr, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-10-07 04:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparky_Lurkdragon/pseuds/Sparky_Lurkdragon
Summary: The bad games are worth preserving, too.





	Another Thing On Games Preservation

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted August 14, 2018 to lurkdragonstuff.tumblr.com, in reaction to discussions surrounding Emuparadise's closure in the wake of Nintendo's draconian takedowns. I believe what sparked this particular essay was seeing someone say something along the lines of "and [x game] isn't even that good, why do you care if you can't get a copy?"
> 
> Well. This is why.
> 
> I posted a lot of comments/short essays in those discussions and may compile them later, but this was I think the only completely standalone one.

And another thing, on game “piracy”.

I think I’ve made it clear before that I absolutely despise  _Metroid: Other M_. For me personally it is the single worst videogame I have ever played. I won’t go into why here, but accept it for the sake of this post: I hate this game and everything it represents.

I hope that a thousand years from now people can still play it.

Because to understand  _Metroid_  you need to understand  _Other M_. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to accept its events as things that actually happened in the world’s narrative, but one way or another, to fully grasp the broader story of  _Metroid_  as a franchise and as a serial work of art, you have to understand  _Other M_. You have to understand what led up to it and you have to understand why it had the impact it did on the fanbase and you have to understand how the series had to pick itself up afterwards.

 _Metroid_ ,  _Metroid Prime, Metroid Fusion, Another Metroid 2 Remake, Axiom Verge, Metroid Prime: Federation Force_ ,  _Castlevania: Symphony of the Night_ ,  _Metroid: Samus Returns,_ and so many others exist in a world where  _Metroid: Other M_  does. To know the full story of  _Metroid_  and the genre it helped create, you have to know about  _Other M_.

To know the full story of  _Sonic the Hedgehog_ , you must know about  _Sonic 2006_ and how that game reverberated forward and back through the franchise.

To know the full story of  _The Legend of Zelda_ , you must know about  _Link: The Faces of Evil._ Hell, to know the full story of the PlayStation and so to know the full story of  _Final Fantasy_  and  _ICO_  and  _Spyro the Dragon_ , you need to know about  _Link: The Faces of Evil_  and how the PlayStation was originally a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony that fell through.

To know the full story of… like, everything it stole from, you need to understand  _Limbo of the Lost_. No, it isn’t important to the games’ actual narratives, and no it’s not something a casual fan or even a more invested fan needs to care about, but it exists and to know the context of, say, the  _Thief_ series and the effect it had on the world, you need to know about it.

 _The shit games are worth every ounce of preservation as the greats_. 

Not even just the shit games! The aggressively average ones, the cynical movie tie ins that weren’t Bad but weren’t good either, the supremely weird ones that weren’t going to find a large audience and knew it and were made anyway.

I want people a thousand years from now to see  _Metroid: Other M_  and use it to understand what people were thinking about at this time and in these places. It’s a terrible game and I don’t recommend anyone play it without a lot of introspection, but it  _is_   _ **important**._

It is a work of art. They are all works of art, they are all valuable for being things that people - real flesh and blood people - got together and made. They are part of our cultures and our histories and  _we **need**  to preserve them. _


End file.
